Chapter 73

Daniel walked slowly to level twenty-five. He could hear the others hurrying to catch up to him, and when he glanced back, some of the guys they had just rescued from downstairs were in the group.

“I am not running a charity,” he told the new arrivals. “Everyone pulls their own weight.”

“We heard, son, and we agreed.”

Daniel nodded grimly and knocked.

“Go away.”

“I have come for the alcohol.”

“Fuck off!”

“I will not do that.” Daniel struggled to keep himself from exploding in anger. There was silence. He knocked again. “I am coming in.”

The doors were designed to only open inwards, but Daniel’s instructions flowed through the wood, and when he pulled, the door neatly swung outwards. A chair tumbled into the corridor. A makeshift barrier had been erected to stop anyone trying to force their way in, but of course it did nothing when someone could pull it clean off its hinges if he wanted to.

Daniel smiled at the shocked expression on the henchmen.

“This does not need to get messy.”

“He opened the door. I think we should give him the grog,” the man yelled. Daniel looked more closely at him. Mid-fifties and fit, he had heavy-duty boots on and had grabbed one of the spare spears. He was the second man from earlier, who had been there but had not physically attacked them.

“No,” Beau called out defiantly from inside the room. Daniel was pretty confident that Beau was the only magic user, so he stepped forward and tossed the chair that had fallen out of the room away. They had a used bed, a table, two suitcases, and the minifridge to secure the room. As he got closer, he could smell beer. Lots of it.

“No bludgers,” Daniel said firmly.

“We don’t want to fight,” the henchman said.

Beau appeared on the other side of the barricade. “But we will,” he promised. “No one made you boss. You want grog, get your own and leave real men alone.”

“I am taking the alcohol.”

“You are not stealing anything from me. Do you know who I am?”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“I am a cop. Been one for twenty years, and if you keep up your crap pretending to be high and mighty, then I will cuff you. So piss off and play with your toy swords somewhere else.”

“I don’t care what you were, now you are nothing.”

Beau waved a hand as darkness coiled within it.

“How did that go for you last time?” Daniel challenged. “And remember what I said. You attack me with magic and I will kill you.”

“Hey, son, that is a bit extreme.” Daniel looked at the fighter from downstairs. It took his attention from Beau, but Priscilla was on his shoulder, making sure Beau could not launch a surprise attack. The older man swallowed. “We don’t need to kill anyone.”

Daniel kept staring, and despite himself the man took a nervous step back.

“The old world is dead,” Daniel said, not breaking his glare. “I am going to get us all out of here, but if anyone comes for me”—he switched his attention to Beau—“then I will eliminate them. Especially if it is the second time.”

Beau looked furiously at him, and now that he had given his previous profession, Daniel could see it in how he carried himself. Tough, no nonsense, capable . . . and a registered card-carrying arsehole.

Beau broke eye contact, and the dark magic vanished. “Fine, you can have it, but anything else we scavenge belongs to us.”

“No, I am not negotiating. But if you contribute, you will get your drinks back.”

“I will not be your slave boy for a drink.”

Daniel said nothing. Beau glowered at him and the others in the room starting passing bottles. “And the Glenfiddich,” Daniel said when the alcohol stopped being passed along. Beau looked angry.

“That’s mine from before the shift.”

“I will put it aside,” Daniel said evenly. “But you aren’t having it till you help the community.” The man’s breathing sped up, dark energy gathering in both his hands. Then the magic died and a false smile plastered his face.

“Make sure you do. Might is right at the moment, but there is a big world out there, and I have friends.” Beau smiled at him. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Beau held tightly to the bottle.

Daniel forced a smile and grabbed the bottle.

“Are you sure, kid?”

Daniel tugged and yanked the bottle out of the other man’s hand. Beau’s eyes flashed with anger, but Daniel had put up with enough of his attitude. With the last of the alcohol secured, he grabbed the door and swung it shut. Power lashed out, fusing the wood in the entrance just like it was thoroughly jammed. It was petty, and it made him feel a lot better. It would take them a long time to break out.

“That was tense,” the spearman said. “Can we kill ferals now?”

Priscilla sent an image of three packets of chips.

I thought we agreed two, Daniel sent back.

A reminder that she had found three different caches came back to him with a packet associated with each one. The mouse was quivering with excitement.

“Fine.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“He talks to the mouse,” Tamara volunteered. “And I am pretty sure Priscilla understands.”

“Two more caches to collect,” Daniel told them loud enough that Beau could hear.

“Hey!” the exclamation of surprise came from the locked door.

Daniel smiled more genuinely. “This way.”

They collected the two hidden stashes. One was in a suitcase in a cupboard and the other in a hole in a bathroom wall.

“They were serious about their alcohol, weren’t they?” Tamara said.

“Yep.”

“Priscilla?”

“Of course.”

“She is a star.” Tamara scratched the mouse’s chin. “How many packets?” she whispered in his ear. Her hot breath made him shiver slightly.

“Three.”

Tamara laughed. “And clever.”

The three full boxes of alcohol that took two men each to carry were placed down in the secured room and the barriers were put back in place.

There were still a few hours of daylight, which was enough time to kill some zombies. The guys who had been pinned down on level twenty-one were enthusiastic. They had lost people, and this was an opportunity to strike back.

To clear floor twenty-two they used the same plan as previously. Let them come up the stairs through the traps and then into a defended position on level twenty-four. All the useful non-fighters had already been evacuated to level twenty-five, and Daniel did not care about Beau’s group. After Zac’s experience, Tom, a kid they had saved from level twenty-nine, ran up the steps and outdistanced his pursuers. Earlier, Zac had just got unlucky, as there had been a speed zombie near the stairwell when he had initiated the plan. Set up as they were without as many traps, the archers and magic users got a workout as around half of the ferals reached their floor.

Priscilla did a sweep and identified that four had not followed the crowd. In response, Ivey organised them to create a beachhead. They waited till none of the ferals were near and then spilled out silently. Restraint nets went up, and then when they were in position, Ivey screamed. All four zombies charged them, but they came one at a time, and the humans’ ranged magic and arrows tore them apart. Three of them before they even reached the defences. One made it but got tangled in the first restraint netting and summarily torn to bits by their ranged forces.

It felt like they had an army at long last.

“We can win this,” one of the new guys yelled. His wooden mace was unbloodied, but his shield at least was scratched. He had successfully blocked one feral upstairs.

“Let reset and clear twenty-three. Six and seven will need to wait until tomorrow.”

“Nah, we can do them all today.”

“Our traps are gone,” Daniel said tiredly.

“We don’t need traps.”

“We do,” he told the annoying man. “The next floor has just four elites, but the higher floors have nine and eleven, respectively. I am not engaging them without a full defensive setup.”

“No unnecessary risks,” Ivey said firmly.

“But—”

“No buts,” Daniel snapped, letting his annoyance show. “There was a reason we could save you, and it is because we survived, because we did not take risks.”

The new guy shut up. After all, that was a hard line to come back to.

They reorganised their positioning. Now that twenty-two was cleared, they decided it would be safer to funnel the new floor down instead of up. There was no point sending monsters toward the non-combat classes. As Daniel worked, it was clear their store of traps was running as low as he expected.

“Ivey.” The girl looked up and immediately came over when he gestured. Like they knew he wanted to discuss strategy, Dave, Ingrid, and Luke followed her. “The traps will kill a couple on the stairs, but then we will have nothing in front of us.”

Ivey pointedly turned towards their increasingly significant fighting force. “They need experience.” She shrugged. “If we throw restraint nets up, that should be enough.”

“I think it is dangerous,” Daniel told her.

“The stairwell is trapped. How many are going to make it through? There are what, four elites? There are fifteen of us.”

“It will only take an hour to entrench ourselves.”

“Honestly better if we don’t,” Ivey told him. “We all need experience. While you clearly get a flow from traps, I doubt it is the same level numbers that fighting one versus one would grant you. Put up the nettings and we will be fine.”

“It feels reckless.”

“You won’t always be around,” Luke said. “The rest of us need to fight by ourselves.”

Daniel shook his head. He appreciated the logic, but it felt irresponsible.

With all their traps in place, Daniel examined the force that had set up. While they did not look crusader formidable with shiny armour and bristling with weapons, they looked dangerous. It felt almost like a band of barbarians who were so disdainful of the ability of their opponents they had not bothered throwing on armour. A “give me a trusty weapons and friends to fight with and I can take on anything” sort of vibe. They even stood with that threat of violence. Three shield users at the front, then the melee fighters, followed up by the archers and mages. He would not want to be charging that group, that was for sure. The zombies, however, would just see meat rather than the threat.

Yet Ivey had a point. As formidable as they appeared, they needed to understand what battle was. They had to experience the terror of the fight, see the whites of their enemies’ eyes, christen themselves in the crucible of battle. They were all level fifteen. They were all superhuman relative to what they had been a week ago. But they had yet to put in practice what the system had taught them. They had to learn not to freeze up once claws started getting thrown in earnest.

“Okay,” Daniel said, finally accepting the group decision. “Let’s do this.”

The small force they had gathered lacked combat experience, but once they gained it, then they could take on the larger threats above them. But for now, too many of them were untested, and this was good time to expose them. Even if things went wrong, they would possess the overwhelming advantage over the dozen or so ferals that would get down to them.

It was time.

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